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Wheeler was born in England. His father worked for the British Overseas Airways Corporation as an airport manager, so he grew up in Pakistan, the Bahamas, Canada, America and England, never spending as much as two years in the same school.[2]

After travelling across Europe on a shoestring with Maureen Wheeler, the pair arrived in Melbourne in 1972 with 27 cents between them, and put out their first book, Across Asia on the Cheap, from their kitchen table in 1973.[4] This would grow into the Lonely Planet empire, a name derived from a misheard Joe Cocker song (the lyric was, in fact, "Lovely Planet").[2]

The Wheelers always saw Lonely Planet as a business, yet it took a while to become successful – in 1975, Maureen had to work to support the couple. Yet in 1980, the publication of a guidebook to India effectively doubled the size of the company.[5]

BBC Worldwide bought 75 percent of their share of the company in 2007 and their remaining 25 percent in February 2011,[6] bringing the couple's net worth to $190 million.[7] After the 2007 BBC deal, Wheeler and his wife established a charitable foundation, Planet Wheeler, which funds over 50 projects in the developing world.[8]

In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Wheeler and Maureen were both appointed as Officers of the Order of Australia (AO), each for "distinguished service to business and commerce as a publisher of travel guides, and as a benefactor to a range of Australian arts and aid organisations".[9]